As I sit here writing this note , my two-week-old son is sleeping in my lap . He came down with a cold over the weekend and it ' s been so painful to watch him struggle with a stuffy nose . My first two weeks of motherhood have not been the idyllic rite of passage that I had hoped for . Starting with his birth that lasted two days and ended in an unplanned C-section , to having to leave my baby in the hospital for a day under the bilirubin lights , to now listening to his stuffy nose and sad cries . And overall the lack of sleep has been more extreme than I planned for and my old demon anxiety has been haunting me .
But today I ' m reading through the entirety of this issue and taking comfort in the vast scale of parenthood . Over this past year , Cauldron Anthology has been exploring the Triple Goddess , Maiden , Mother , and Crone . For this issue , we took inspiration from the mythology of Gaia the titan mother goddess , Eve the Christian mother of humanity , and Loki genderfluid parent to monsters . Parenthood / Motherhood looks so different and today I ’ m especially grateful that there is no one right way to do it .
I want to thank each and every contributor for making this issue so special . When I initially planned to spend a year looking at the Maiden , Mother , Crone mythology I had no idea that the timing would align with the pregnancy and birth of my first child . So it ’ s been all the more beautiful to put together the Mother issue . Thank you all for your words , your art , and your perspectives . Special thanks to Wendy Hess for her donations that made contributor payments possible for the first time . Thank you to our five patrons , it ’ s been fantastic to see our Patreon grow . And of course , thank you all for reading and supporting us every day . Issue 14 : Mother is one of our very best .
Abigail Eckstine Founder & Editor-In-Chief